


You Are Here

by swamplamp



Series: Departures [1]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, general Tom Wambsgans-grade foulness, heinously self-indulgent fluff, identity crisis, jealousy and rage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23952415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swamplamp/pseuds/swamplamp
Summary: A lot of things happened and it all fell apart. Like,waythe fuck apart. He lost his job, then he lost Shiv. He lost his goddamn mind.
Relationships: Greg Hirsch/Tom Wambsgans
Series: Departures [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771378
Comments: 8
Kudos: 102





	You Are Here

Tom lost his virginity to a girl he was seeing in college when he was 19. That was the story he had always gone with, anyway.

Her name was Ariel and she lived in the same dormitory hall as him. She had long blond hair that she always tied up and a naturally husky voice that she went lengths to cover up by speaking in a high pitch. They were in love.

They studied in the library and went to dinner around the city together all throughout the semester. People even told him that they were a cute couple. It was the real deal.

The first time they had sex, he was nervous. Of course he was. The problem was, he couldn't stay hard and it was a little upsetting. It happened the second time too. Ariel told him that it was okay and Tom believed her.

They broke up right before she left for a study abroad program in Greece. He broke up with her, knowing that it was a reasonable decision to make. Then, oddly, she asked him with a breathy gravitas that annoyed him, "So, what were we, exactly?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, what was all this about, Tom? What was I to you?"

He chuckled nervously, hated himself for it. "I don't think I get your meaning."

"Whatever. It's fine. I've gotta go." They never spoke again.

He thought she was his girlfriend. Was she not? Sometimes, he wanted to be angry about it. Most times, he was just confused, such was the standard for Tom at that age. Things got less confusing as he made something of himself at school, then at his career.

He didn't care much for dating, because he had work to do. That didn't make his mom any less worried about him. She made a big deal about it when he was 30 and came home for Thanksgiving alone, as though he was reaching his expiration date. Tom told her everything was fine, because it was. He was dating women here and there. It kept feeling like a glass slipper situation. The shoes never really fit.

Once or twice, he went into a relationship brutally honest with himself and the girl he was seeing. That didn’t work, so he went in with less truth and more aspiration. Because, really, truth was moldable. Truth was bullshit. Achievement and force of will was something he and everyone else could see. Fuck “who he was”; “who he can be” was fucking valid.

He met Shiv through one of those work things where the lines between work and play were made blurry due to the mass quantities of alcohol being pushed into everyone's hands. He thought she was going to eat him alive. Somehow, he liked that. And whatever he was doing, she liked it too. In the early days, Shiv looked at him like she wanted to lift him off the ground with one hand and toss him across the room. Tom, honest to fucking God, wanted her to.

When she took him to dinner, he felt like he was being swept off his feet.

The first time they had sex, it was in the most jarringly gaudy four-poster bed with a red velvet curtain. He felt like someone new. Someone he wanted to get to know a lot more. With Tom flat on his back, Shiv gripped his shoulders and pressed him down into the mattress with a firmness Tom expected and wanted. She rode his cock and laughed breathlessly like they had both discovered something. She arched forward to kiss him softly and sweetly. He came then, and he was pretty sure he was in love.

They had a plan together and it was a good one. It made their relationship strong. Any little issue they came across in their relationship was insignificant, dwarfed by the behemoth size of the Big Plan. Shiv whispered in her dad's ear and up Tom climbed. It was going to be his someday. All of it.

And then it wasn't. And then it wasn't Shiv's either. A lot of things happened and it all fell apart. Like, _way_ the fuck apart. He lost his job, then he lost Shiv. He lost his goddamn mind.

After driving north for what felt like hours with nothing in his head but white noise intermittently punctuated with blaring dread, he settled into a little town upstate along the Hudson. He later realized that he didn’t get that far from the city at all, but he was tired of going nowhere.

There, Tom tried a lot of new things. Impulsive, contradictory things. It wasn't anything too crazy. More along the lines of settling with plastic hangers to hang shirts up or attending the local art show with the neighbors. Normal people shit. That, and leaning into the impulse to check guys out every now and then.

Like some sort of weird, gay Beetlejuice, Greg showed up one day and never left. Tom took him in and things were suddenly different. Greg didn’t have nice hair or an attractive voice. He didn’t come with a job offer or any real incentive to be around at all. But it felt less like dying when Tom was around him.

Kissing Greg turned into an addiction for Tom. The worst thing about it was that Greg indulged him, never telling him no and never questioning why. It was just something that Tom did when the mood struck. A friend in college once told him, while lighting up a cigarette in the parking lot of a bowling alley, about how he quit smoking twice a month. It was like that. Tom swore off kissing Greg at least once a week.

The simple act of pressing his mouth against Greg’s felt good, like something he never felt before. It felt so good that Tom tried to be cruel about it. Tom kept giving into compulsion and reaching for him, ravenous with it. He kissed him greedily, self-serving in a way that would piss other people off. Greg, obviously, wasn’t other people.

Tom was going through something horrifying, but it wasn’t something he could ask anyone for help with. He wanted to talk about it, but never had the right words. It was all very confusing. Even worse, Greg couldn’t be bothered to act like he was confused too.

“What do you mean you ‘just knew’?” Tom asked behind the wheel on the way to some hiking trail Greg texted him a pin to. They did weekend trips sometimes. Because that was what they could do now.

“I mean, like. I could just tell.”

“What, like gaydar? Gaydar isn’t a thing. It hasn’t been a thing since 2004, even I know that.”

“Yeah, okay. Sure. But if you want to know the things that tipped me off? It was whenever you’d look at me. Or... or, sometimes you’d get this look on your face, when you were around other people, like when they were talking about certain things. I don’t know, I can’t really describe it.”

Tom hit a mental block trying to make sense of what Greg said. Nonetheless, he felt cheated somehow. At that moment, the windshield was pelted with thick drops of rain. Tom switched the windshield wipers on, hoping the weather was clearer up in the mountains. Tom sighed, “Well, I think that’s just you being ridiculous.”

Greg turned to him and Tom didn’t even need to look back at him to know his expression. It was that look he got, back in the day, when he was about to punch a hole in a conversation by correcting Tom in front of senior management. Greg said, “That doesn’t make it any less true.”

“What do you want from me?” Tom groaned.

“I want— I just want to make sure, uh. Are, are you okay with this?”

“With what part?”

“The part where... the part where it’s you.”

Tom wasn’t sold on believing anything at this point in his life. “The way I see it,” he explained. “This might not be permanent. Like, how can I know this isn’t liable to drop out all of a sudden, as some sort of fluke. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately, so. Can we really say this is me?”

“If it feels right to you, then yeah. We can. If it doesn't, then we won't.”

“Okay?” he intoned, brow raised. "Why do I feel like you're playing judge, jury, and executioner here?"

"Maybe because that's who you've gotten used to being around all the time." He sounded so sure. He added belatedly, "I won't do that to you though. You know that, right?"

In lieu of a response, Tom turned on the radio to a station playing classical music. He exhaled sharply. He wanted to take the whole conversation back, feeling like he already said too much. The concerto ended, leaving the placid-toned DJ to fill the silence with facts on some Viennese production of The Marriage of Figaro. The rain didn’t let up.

The parking lot for the hiking trail was all gravel and mud. There were several other cars parked in the lot. Before they set off, he hadn’t even questioned Greg on the destination. Tom's newfound “up for anything” attitude tended to bring on mixed results. This one was not so bad, comparatively.

In between texting on his phone, Greg leaned forward to peer through the torrents of water cascading down the windshield. “I don’t think hiking is such a good idea in this weather.”

“Right.”

“We should at least, like, check out whatever they’ve got over there.” The entrance to a rest area was behind them, looking brown and kitschy with a life-sized stuffed bear in a red apron and straw hat standing on its hind legs to greet visitors. “I’ve gotta make a phone call for a bit.”

“Yeah, sure.”

They scurried across the lot and under the overhang without an umbrella. Greg veered off to the side, while Tom entered the building. Tom knew that Greg wasn’t taking work calls, especially on a weekend. Greg worked part-time at a senior home as a poolside lifeguard, which Tom found to be hilarious and absurd. But Greg told him it was, for the most part, a low-stress job and the people he worked with were nice. In any case, Tom had a feeling Greg was getting phone calls because he was seeing somebody. Greg was sneaky about it too, taking all of those calls out of earshot. Tom didn’t feel any particular way about that. He wasn’t even going to acknowledge it.

Inside, Tom found himself surrounded by maps and taxidermy. In glass cases, there were boards tacked with beetle and butterfly carcasses. He felt very much at home with the irony of a wildlife reserve proudly displaying all its dead creatures. Not a living soul in sight. He would never tell anyone this, but he was a Boy Scout for a year. He was young, maybe ten or eleven years old. He refused to go a second year because he couldn’t stand to be away from his mom any longer. The scout meetings disrupted their Saturday brunch time. In Little Tom's defense, his mom was rarely around on the weekdays and that bothered him. He was never particularly fond of wildlife and crafty Macgyver shit anyway. Definitely couldn’t start a fire without a lighter if he needed to. Tom sat down on a bench beside the vending machines and waited. 

Of course, Greg entered the rest area getting chummy with a young and trendy-looking park ranger. Greg introduced Tom to the park ranger, who seemed cool. And, okay, he was attractive: brown eyes that glimmered, rounded facial features, dark olive-toned skin, thick wavy black hair, and ivory gauge earrings in both lobes. His name was Dan. In a whirlwind of charm (from Dan) and unassuming grins (from Greg), they were invited to drinks at a bar in the nearby town.

“Tonight. After I get off at seven,” Dan clarified smoothly, looking right at Greg. “It’s gonna be with a few other rangers. I’ll see who’s down. But it’ll be way casual, so come as you are.”

While Tom’s head reeled from the brazen rollercoaster of innuendo, Greg accepted the invitation and exchanged phone numbers. 

Tom muttered when they got back into the car, “What the fuck.”

“What?”

“‘After I get off’?”

“It’ll be fun, right? Like, we brought overnight bags, so let’s stay in town. Meet some people.” Greg looked over at him and suddenly he looked concerned. “Is this not okay?”

“It’s, uh. Y’know.” Tom turned the car on. “Yeah, no. Lead the way.”

They got a room in town at some lodge. The room had one queen-sized bed, which made Tom want to scream. Tom rooted around in his head for excuses to keep Greg with him and not go out with that guy. He dreaded spending the whole night by himself in the room. He wasn’t about to say that out loud.

Tom busied his hands with putting his clothes on hangers in the closet. He asked, “Are we dressed for this?” 

“He said it’d be casual.”

“That could mean anything.”

Greg crowded into his line of sight like an inquisitive bird in a surveillance camera lens. "Are you worried? About people knowing who we are?"

"Worried about people knowing that we were publicly shit on by the most powerful media corporation in the world? No. No, of course not."

"Well, you look nice." Greg smiled and pat him on the back haltingly. 

Tom didn't know what that meant, but he smiled back anyway because he was probably going to do something terrible tonight. They went out wearing hiking boots, for God’s sake. The designated meeting place was walking distance from where they were staying. It was a bar with picnic-style tables and neon signs, so Tom got themselves a pitcher of beer and a set of plastic cups.

Soon after, Dan showed up with only one other person. She introduced herself as Kerry and looked to be about Tom's age, maybe younger. She had soft-looking dark brown hair and a sleeve tattoo, which ultimately made Tom the most unfashionable person at the table. In most situations, Greg took that station for himself, but Tom felt out of his element among these people and in the woeful condition that he was in. The back and forth between Dan, Kerry, and Greg flowed in a way that Tom couldn’t get into, so he sat back for a little. Maybe he could find a way in, if he understood the situation better.

Tom studied the sharp, meaningful looks that Dan sent Greg's way. He wondered if this was meant to be a double date. Tom looked at Kerry while she talked about the time she slipped down a muddy hill at the reserve where she and Dan worked. She was pretty. He thought about what it would be like to get intimate with her, but his body’s reaction to that thought fell flat like a failed engine. That was frustrating. Tom knew, then, that he was about to get weird. Offensively so.

“Yeah, I’m liking it so far. It’s... better,” Greg said. “City living was rough.”

“Ooh, Greg coming in with the understatements,” Tom laughed. “Wall Street essentially ran this one out of town armed with rolled up newspapers and Chanel No.5 as mace.”

“What’d you do to piss ‘em off?” Dan asked Greg. Their shoulders were close, a hair's breadth from touching. “Steal one too many rolls of toilet paper from the office? Nah, it couldn’t have been theft. They love that shit.”

Greg lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “No, he's joking. I left. I - I made the choice to leave, really.”

Tom narrowed his eyes at Greg, feeling a lust for blood. He leaned in towards Dan and Kerry and spoke loudly, "He tried to throw a stone at Goliath, but Goliath ripped him the fuck to shreds. He's on the blacklist of practically every major corporation, all because he tried to be a hero."

"Oh," Dan said. "That sounds juicy. That true, Greg?"

"There was some... some stuff. Kind of nasty stuff released to the public. But - but, you know, it didn't amount to much, in the end. I can't actually talk about it."

Kerry offered, "You can at least tell us which companies were involved, yeah? So we could boycott them."

Tom cut in, "What he means is it's too embarrassing for him to talk about. After it all blew up, he showed up at my doorstep begging me to take him in. It was the saddest thing I ever saw.”

Out of the corner of Tom’s eye, Greg flashed him a look. Tom refused to look back at him.

Dan asked Tom, “So, you two have known each other for a while?”

“Barely. Distantly. Just enough to be shocked by his big move to expose us.”

“Oh, ‘us’?” Dan said, interested. “As in, you were working for the dirtbag company too?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I was. Greg may look friendly enough, but he sure knows how to grease up the higher-ups to fuck ‘em later. He got really good at it.” He said coldly, “Sometimes I wonder if it’s in his blood.” He looked over at Greg then.

"That's—" Greg blinked rapidly, eyes cast downwards. "That's actually untrue."

Tom prodded. "Oh, is it?"

There was silence. Tom was familiar with that silence, because he heard it plenty with the Roy family. Except, this time, he caused it. He had brought the conversation down to a level he knew well.

Greg glanced up at Tom once, tensely. "Tom, can we talk outside for a sec?" He rose to a stand, apologizing to Dan and Kerry on his way out.

The small town that it was, the street outside was dead quiet. The storefronts across the street were all dark. The rain had stopped but the night chill set in. Tom had left his jacket inside, leaving him to hunch his shoulders inwards defensively. 

Greg had the audacity to ask, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Tom responded tightly. "What's the matter, Greg?"

Greg huffed out a stream of air, visible in the cold. "So, like. I'm sensing some aggression from you and it's... I don’t enjoy hearing the things you’re saying about me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“At the same time, I know that I'm partly at fault for all this?”

"Continue."

"I haven't been... I think a lot of this aggression is coming from me keeping secrets," he started, pushing his hair back from his face. "I haven't been completely honest with you ever since I tracked you down. And, I mean, I haven't ever lied. Not to you. It was only - I was only withholding information, because I didn't want you to feel bad."

Tom pursed his lips apprehensively. He didn't like where this was going, but he needed it to go a lot faster than this.

Greg asked carefully, "What you're saying in there, is that why you think I'm here?"

"For the most part, yeah."

"Well. It's not."

"Uh huh," Tom answered flatly, unsure.

"I really am here because I chose to be, you know? Like, here's the thing. There were a lot of offers after Kendall's press release, okay. Really big opportunities. I guess they were interested because of what I did with Kendall? And then, remember Gerri? Kellman?"

Tom practically spit, "Of course I remember Gerri, what about her?"

"I was on the phone with her today, earlier. She says Logan's been trying to bring me back in. And - and people like Logan—like, Logan-adjacent figures in other companies—have been trying to lure me in. I’ve been getting emails and phone calls nonstop from all these people, and I told them that I’m not interested."

Tom felt downright sour. He stood there searching Greg's face, waiting for something. He decreed, "You're full of shit."

Greg's face fell and he took his phone out of his pocket. He showed him his call history, clearly displaying Gerri's name and the day's date. Then he flipped through a series of emails from an odd swarm of companies like PGM, Deloitte, and Nvidia, asking him to meet.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? If they've been all over you this whole time, then why haven't you been meeting them?"

The side of Greg's mouth rose, but it was very much a frown. A frown of a guilty person caught out. "Because I didn't want to."

"And why, Greg, didn't you want to?"

"Because I'm with you."

Tom’s face felt hot. He shook his head numbly and stepped down onto the asphalt of the parking lot to walk a tight loop while sighing deeply. "Okay. You're with me. Whatever that means. And, and what about with the guy in there? With Dan?"

"Hmm?"

"You're going to sleep with him tonight. Aren't you?"

"No. I'm not going anywhere with him. That's not what I'm doing."

"It's fine, you know. You don't need my permission. It was the plan, wasn't it?"

"Tom. The - the plan is that we're going to finish drinks with those two, say goodnight, and then... And then, you and me. We’re going to go back to our room for the night."

"Our room. You and me. With the one bed."

"Yeah.” Greg exhaled forcefully, eyes shut. He nodded his head repeatedly. “I mean, yeah."

"Oh."

"Was that... the bed's okay, right? That wasn't too... It's not too much for you?"

"No,” Tom responded quickly. “Okay, yeah. Let's do that."

Dan and Kerry were good people, as it turned out. They ordered two more pitchers of beer. Kerry and Tom shared stories about the culture shock they felt in New York after moving from the Midwest and commiserated with each other about how long ago it was. Unsurprisingly, Kerry and Dan both had an extensive work background with nonprofit organizations. Tom did not want to hear about that, but didn’t stop Greg from asking a seemingly unending list of questions on the topic. Deeper into the night, Tom angled his leg under the table to knock the side of his knee against Greg’s. Looking over, Greg met eyes with him and gave a small but devastating smile. 

Tom and Greg walked back to the lodge together, buzzing with overwhelming contentment. Tom really liked this dead quiet town. As long as it was as dark and empty as it was, it felt like theirs. 

When they got into bed, they met in the middle, lying on their sides. They lied face to face without touching or speaking. Tired now, Tom felt sad thoughts creep into his consciousness. The last time he shared a bed was with Shiv. It hadn’t occurred to him that it would be the last time. Inexplicably, he felt homesick.

“Hey.” Greg frowned at him.

“Hey,” Tom echoed flatly. He shut his eyes and breathed. “I’m sorry, you know. I shouldn’t have said those things.”

Greg responded quietly, “Yeah.”

Tom opened his eyes. “Being around me, this might be all you can expect. I might never change, at least not for the better.”

“Yeah. I know. But you’re going through some stuff. It’s like I said though: I - I want to be with you.”

“Okay,” he said, skeptical. “What if I’m not... If it turns out I’m not actually attracted to men, what’s gonna happen?”

“I’ll be here.”

“No. This might not even be real, just like all the times for me before with women. Every time, it’s been like one of those shitty planes where, once it’s up in the sky, the engine’ll fall out of the back and the whole thing goes plummeting. You’re the one who’s gonna plummet. Okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed, smiling. “You’ve put me through a lot worse before this, so I think I can manage.”

“We’re down to life or death here, Greg.”

Greg closed his eyes and hummed. “That’s fine.”

“Well... hey. Hey.” Tom jabbed him in the shin with his toe. He felt himself panicking a little. He needed Greg to understand. “Listen, this is important. I might not have sex with you.”

“Yeah. You don’t have to.”

“Not just tonight. I mean, ever.”

Greg looked back at him from across the pillows. He looked serious. Tom waited for the look of betrayal to show somewhere in the lines of his face. 

“We’ll figure this out,” Greg said. “Even if it means we don’t. It’s okay, Tom. Really.”

He weighed Greg’s words in his head, wishing he could put them under a microscope and see them for what they were. His head throbbed while his thoughts pinged around in his mind like a loaded spring in a tin can. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until he figured this out. Beside him, Greg was drifting off to sleep on his back.

Tom sighed. He crawled over to Greg and seized his arm. Greg made a small questioning sound, so he shushed him. He lowered himself against Greg’s side and, without further question, Greg wrapped his arm around Tom’s shoulder. Like that, they were nestled against each other tightly. And that felt okay. Tom fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Witness these losers in full color at my tumblr @ waystar-roycos


End file.
